


Artemisia

by scarlett_the_seachild



Series: Artemisia [1]
Category: The Iliad - Homer, The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-20
Updated: 2014-02-20
Packaged: 2018-01-13 04:30:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1212727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarlett_the_seachild/pseuds/scarlett_the_seachild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tide pulls Achilles, and it's all Patroclus can do to hold on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Artemisia

Afterwards we lay together, the dying moonlight dappled blood clots on our skin; silvery white threads catching the shadows of our arms and slunk themselves round our elbows like cotton on a woman's distaff. His head on my chest, my arm crooked around him, his breathing like the tide drawing in the darkness across a dampened shore and out again. Its steady weight reigning in my heart, not one beat out of time. His eyelashes flutter over eyes closed in sleepy content but I cannot help but look towards the window and wonder if the cheery wink of the moon is no more than a promise of closing dark and a reminder of what comes for us. Beyond familiar shores a shadow land, and therein the black sail and a ship with a curved prow.

"Patroclus," he says with his conqueror's smile, boasting with youth and unbreakable self-assurance. The closest I have to a smile like that is the gentle heaviness of him and my arm crooked round his torso and the tide's pull on my chest. But "Patroclus," he says and it's almost a lesson. "They will not let us die. I am Achilles and you are mine."

And I indulge him with my own smile which is not quite that of a wetnurse's but he sleeps as if I'd sung him a lullaby. The moon catches in his hair, it wraps around his limbs and the tide pulls him with lengths of silver thread. So I keep one arm round him and the other on the bed and I hold him to me until the morning breaks the dark.


End file.
